Social Responsibility

Definition:Acting with concern and sensitivity, aware of the impact of your
actions on others, particularly the disadvantaged
.

Does your business use recycled paper products or donate to a
homeless shelter? A growing number of consumers consider such
factors when deciding whether to patronize your business. A
company's "social responsibility" quotient can make a difference to
its bottom line.

If you think getting involved in social causes would work for
your business, here are some things to consider. First and
foremost, customers can smell "phony" social responsibility a mile
away, so unless you're really committed to a cause, don't try to
exploit customers' concerns to make a profit.

Here are a few steps you can take to make social responsibility
work for you:

Set goals. What do you want to achieve?
What do you want your company to achieve? Do you want to enter a
new market? Introduce a new product? Enhance your business's
image?

Decide what cause you want to align yourself
with. This may be your toughest decision, considering all the
option out there: children, the environment, senior citizens,
homeless people, people with disabilities--the list goes on. You
might want to consider a cause that fits in with your products or
services. For example, a manufacturer of women's clothing could get
involved in funding breast cancer research. Another way to narrow
the field is by considering not only causes you feel strongly
about, but also those that your customers consider
significant.

Choose a nonprofit or other organization to
partner with. Get to know the group, and make sure it's sound,
upstanding, geographically convenient and willing to cooperate with
you in developing a partnership.

Design a program, and propose it to the
nonprofit group. Besides laying out what you plan to
accomplish, also include indicators that will measure the program's
success in tangible terms.

Negotiate an agreement with the
organization. Know what they want before you sit down, and try
to address their concerns upfront.

Involve employees. Unless you get employees
involved from the beginning, they won't be able to communicate the
real caring involved in the campaign to customers.

Involve customers. Don't just do something
good and tell your customers about it later. Get customers
involved, too. A sporting goods store could have customers bring in
used equipment for a children's shelter, then give them a 15
percent discount on new purchases. Make it easy for customer to do
good; then reward them for doing it.